OGALLALA - Governor Ricketts traveled to the Lake McConaughy Welcome Center north of Ogallala Tuesday. This is just one of the stops in his water and tax proposal presentations. 

Ricketts discussed the three main changes he plans to make to taxes in Nebraska. 

One change is to raise the rebate on Property or State income tax from six percent to over 25 percent. 

"That’s a refundable tax credit which means if you don’t owe the state of Nebraska anything they’ll send you a check,” Ricketts says.

Ricketts also plans to phase out taxes on social security over a period of 5 years, which means time spent waiting for tax relief will be cut in half for senior citizens. 

Ricketts says this provides seniors with more incentive to stay in Nebraska.

The third and final tax proposal is to lower income tax. Ricketts says this will be a motive for more young people to move to, or stay in Nebraska. 

“If we want our young people to stay here we’ve got to continue to be looking at how to be a tax competitor," Ricketts says.

Ricketts is proposing to take the income tax rate from 6.84 percent to 5.84 percent. 

Ricketts also touches on the $500 million dollar canal he plans to build.

Ricketts received a lengthy amount of questions about the canal, including where it would be located. However, until the appropriation committee approves the budget, the logistics of the canal remain unclear.

Ricketts says The timeline of this canal would be three years to plan, and then three to five years to actually build it.